192 DARWINIANISM. 



to suggest at least evolution, bring it about as you 

 may ? 



I do not think that any one will deny, that such 

 thought is an eminently natural one. An omnipotent 

 God statedly employed in the sort of retail trade of 

 manufacturing beetles is no very improving spectacle. 

 Still, if it is to be assumed that species are derived from 

 species, instead of being expressly created, it is just 

 possible that the peculiar lever of the movement, proposed 

 by Mr. Darwin, may not be the right one. 



But of that again what we have before us at present 

 is Mr. Darwin's own relation to the work which he under- 

 took. Now, if it was the love of hypothesis that was to 

 preside over the work ; it was, as we are inclined to 

 fancy, Mr. Darwin's characteristic simplicity that set it 

 all in movement. 



In the one case, I think we may say that the tendency 

 to even startling hypothesis is admitted in grandfather, 

 father, and himself. " I have a fair share of invention," 

 says Mr. Darwin more than once significantly to himself 

 with a smile. Of course, the check of judgment is as 

 strongly claimed as the love of hypothesis is admitted. 

 But if we are under the dominion of hypothesis, it is at 

 least not generally found that facts are incorruptible. 

 Mr. Francis Darwin himself has of his father these strong 

 words (i. 149) : "It was as though he were charged with 

 theorising power ready to flow into any channel on the 

 slightest disturbance, so that no fact, however small, 

 could avoid releasing a stream of theory, and thus the 

 fact became magnified into importance. In this way it 

 naturally happened that many untenable theories occurred 

 to him." It would be difficult to put the case more 

 plainly; though, of course, it is only natural for the 

 son to add, and in a measure truly to add, " but fortun- 

 ately his richness of imagination was equalled by his 



